Might have been in a time scramble - wasn't sure he'd made the time control, so blitzed out a repetition. Once he was sure he'd made it, and thus had a moment to reflect, he saw and played the winning move. Cf. my 32.Qg6+ in F Rhine vs D Sprenkle, 1981. (In my case I was in mild time pressure, saw that 32.Rf1+ was an easy win, pondered whether there was any reason to get two moves closer to the time control with 32.Qg6+ and 33.Qh7+, didn't see any real need to do so, but, having wasted a couple of minutes on the clock, figured I'd better throw it in before I flagged while pondering the matter.)

White was probably worried about Black's kingside threats after 26.Rxd7 Bxh4, e.g. with Re1+, Rbe8, Ng5, and R8e2+. Perhaps White can tie Black down enough with the passed d-pawn to avoid disaster, but he preferred not to allow Black to infiltrate his position.

daveinsatiable: For the benefit of Infohunter et al., I'm going to explain Tim's subtlety.
Tim was referring to the fact that Van Gogh is only mispronounced Van Go in the US. On this side of the pond (and I believe, but could be wrong, most of the rest of the Anglphone world) we mispronounce it Van Goff. At least we have an excuse - it's almost the English surname 'Gough' (pronounced Goff). There's no excuse for pronouncing it 'Go'. That's just sily.

Tired Tim: Ah DaveInsatiable - you read me like the proverbial. Two for two, as the north Americans would quaintly style it, Shams, I think

I'm interested in the comment by RMKvdS, though - as s/he will know what s/he is talking about ... I had understood the "correct" pronunciation was something like Gocccch (and that might not help much)

RMKvdS: <Abdel Irada> Thanks. So, this means you taught me not to use teached? Mind you, I am not trying being sarcastic, I am simply amused by the fact that I wasn't taught to use taught. This is probably another error-ridden kibitz, but that is what learning is all about!

Abdel Irada: I'd think that Van Gogh would be pronounced with with the "gh" sound as heard in such phrases as "Guten Morghen," with a sound approximating the scraping "r" in "Paris" as pronounced by a Parisian. This is, of course, a fairly subtle and unfamiliar phoneme for speakers of many other languages, so it's not surprising that we English-speakers would miss the distinction between it and a (perhaps slightly "roughened") "o" sound.

Infohunter: Ah yes, now that you mention it, <daveinsatiable>, I can understand how much of the non-USA Anglophone world would pronounce it "van Goff". At the same time, I am aware of the proper Dutch pronunciation as well, so do I get half a point here at least?

The page advises that the final "h" in Van Gogh is (often) not pronounced, leaving one to infer that the "g" is pronounced in the manner the page approximates as "ch," with the note that this is the "throat-clearing" sound found in Arabic and Hebrew, but not in English.

However, most of the sound samples I listened to sounded vaguely like the Parisian "r," which I'd call more of a gargling or a "something caught in my esophagus" sound.

Infohunter: <Abdel Irada> I know what you mean by the Parisian "r"; it is technically known (by phoneticians) as the "uvular 'r'", and that explains the fact of its having something in common with Dutch "g". Unlike the "ch" sound you describe, Dutch "g" is articulated at the uvula and not at the velum (which is the point of articulation of the "ch" in Scottish dialect "loch" [="lake"], this being the most common example used to teach English speakers how to say this general kind of sound, lacking in English, in a given target language). This is what leads (A) to the inaccuracy of the imprecise Hebrew/Arabic "ch" comparison and (B) to the phonetic affinity of Dutch "g" and Parisian "r". So the site, while getting the audio files right, falls a bit short when it comes to explanation.

Incidentally, I did listen to "gorgelen" and it matched my expectations. Here is something not found on that page: Years ago (before the Internet) I read somewhere that it is almost impossible for anyone not born and raised in the Netherlands to pronounce the number "888" correctly (written out, that would be "achthonderd achtentachtig"). I'll say one thing: Working hard to master that one certainly would keep one out of mischief for awhile.

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